Back to Nature, Sort Of

This weekend we went on our family camping trip. There are a lot of places to camp near our home. This time we went to Mckinney Falls. It is about 45 minutes away. But because of the lack of rain over the past few months, the falls were merely a trickle over the rocks. Still the kids had a lot of fun.

My children are generally entertained by the simple things. So while hiking they were thrilled to just play in the creek and in the dirt.

McKinney Falls has a great swimming hole. The kids played there both days. Even though the water was frigid the kids stayed for hours. They found frogs, turtles and someone spotted a water moccasin (that was before we got there).

The kids climbed on every rock and tree they could find. And of course they threw as many rocks as possible. Toby has become really good at skipping rocks. (Check out the ripples in the photo above.)

A few entertaining things at the campsite were the squirrel that ate our canteloupe while we were swimming. There was also a raccoon sleeping in a tree near our camp site. (The people next to us said that the raccoon had eaten all their eggs.) A butterfly was trapped in our tent. Aspen had fun getting that out.


Back at camp, the kids entertained themselves until dinner with sticks and rocks and dirt. They built little camps for their beanbag lizards. I'm always amazed that kids don't need storebought toys to be entertained. They are happiest with sticks and rocks. (Maybe that's what they'll get for Christmas and birthdays this year!) At least mine are. Add a little water to make some mud and they are in heaven. Of course Toby brought his magnifying glass again and had fun burning holes in things.

We were going to go for three days, but Hazel has been sick so we didn't leave until Friday morning.I ended up only going for lunch and dinner and then I took Hazel back home.

We cheated a little and I brought pizza for lunch. (We aren't really that far from town. There were a lot of traffic noises and we were near the airport.)


Nate made dinner of cornish game hens (really just little chickens) for each of us with some roasted veggies. It was delicious. Food tastes better outdoors.

Aspen came home and crashed. 3 1/2 hours later, she is still sleeping.
I enjoyed just sitting and listening to the wind in the trees and reading my book. Maybe we'll go again in a couple weeks. We'll see...